We haunt every medium we make.

November 26, 2007

Suicide and fake identity in MySpace and media

A fake MySpace identity lies at the center of a suicide. The real issue seems to be specific inter- and intra-family dynamics, but, typically, media coverage emphasizes the digital technology. The dark reputation of MySpace continues to grow.

The story began last year (thanks to Making Light for one chronology), when Megan Meier, 13, struck up a friendship with another teenager via MySpace. This lasted for several months, until the boy, Josh Evans, suddenly cut things off in a cruel way. Megan, just short of turning 14, who already had a history of depression, hanged herself. Her parents subsequently divorced.

One month later Josh turned out to not be a boy, but a collaborative fiction created by a family down the street from the now-grieving Meiers. Parents and a child built this persona together, apparently in order to fish for Megan's thoughts about themselves. They even invited another family's child to contribute, and that teen revealed the scheme.

No legal response to this hoax was able to stick, however. Local law enforcement argued that no statutes had been violated. In fact, the closest thing to illegality was Megan Meier's initial signup for MySpace, when she was one year too young (13) for the TOS (14). In one posthumous response, the nearest city decided to criminalize internet-mediated harassment shortly after the story broke.

Extralegal responses also occurred. The hoaxing family's house was apparently targeted for various acts of vandalism. Megan's father dumped a broken foosball table on their yard. On the internet, blogs, blog posts, and other websites have been set up naming names and calling for condemnation or the filing of child abuse charges. For example,

That last blog post also names the Drews' business, lists contact info, and displays a map to their home. Many bloggers and other people collaborated to build this knowledge, then share it with the world. It's clearly a form of Jochai Benkler's commons-based peer production.

The Drews' responses? Not much beyond silence so far, from the parents. Apparently their daughter started a blog to defend herself, with a disturbing and revealing title: Megan Had It Coming.

On one level this story embodies a series of established digital fear patterns. It turns on one of the key elements of cyberfear in American culture, adults fearing teenagers who use technology to act on their desires. This case also adds the ever-popular theme of fake identity. But it is unusual in showing adults using technology in uncanny ways, in order to dupe minors; the reverse is more commonly discussed, and feared.

On another level we see in microcosm the full range of possibilities for internet-mediated collective action: online friendship and romance, information-seeking and popular surveillance (about the Drews).

That last part opens up a third layer, which is information disclosure by media during the age of citizen journalism. Should reporters name the hoaxing family? When the St. Louis Post-Dispatch broke the story (November 11, 2007) the account refused to name them. Yet the drive to out the perps was widespread. The Jezebel site, for example, urged all readers to "START SNITCHING" (caps in original). Jim Romanesko offers a snapshot of popular demand for journalists to out the simulacrum-makers. This raises the interesting possibility that mainstream media can hew to a standard of probity, once the rest of us dive in to discover and spread the dirt.

In particular, as noted above, MySpace's dark reputation continues to grow. Notice how the local paper describes it:

SHADOWY CYBERSPACE

Tina Meier was wary of the cyber-world of MySpace and its 70 million users. People are not always who they say they are.

Tina knew firsthand...

That meme is well enough developed that that account can play off of it ironically.

One last note: consider dana boyd's hypothesis about MySpace, Facebook, and class.
What would such a story look like if the platform had been Facebook, if
it happened at all?

The traditional gate-keepers used to be accused of invading privacy, and yet now they are much more timid in their approach of disseminating information. Fear of lawsuits and advertiser pullout are part of the reasons for the reluctance to divulge certain information.

And unlike bloggers who tend to be green in this area, many editors and journalists have seen the fallout of being completely open with the facts.

But all the same, it's changing landscape -- while journalists continue to hold back -- others with access will not respond in kind.
The gate-keepers have lost their power -- and they have to come to terms with that.

The naming of Lori Drew has sparked quite a debate indeed. Some major news outlets have chosen to name the perpetrator(s) behind this story such as the New York Times. Some have chosen not to. The mainstream media however has concluded that the blogging community should shoulder the responsibility of first naming the perpetrator behind this story.

The first question I have in this debate is simple. What is new here? Since before the French Revolution, the media has been used to 'out' individuals who's actions seem to bear public relevancy in some way.

Although Lori Drew has not yet been charged in the case of Megan Meier, the media has never required formal charges to be made before running a story. In the case of some journalist like Dan Rather, some media outlets run with stories before even confirming that they're true.

In this particular case, media outlets that have chosen to withhold Lori Drew's identity have done so in consideration of other Drew family members.

I'm wondering if by doing this, the media plans to always withhold the names of interesting persons who outrage the community, if those persons have children. This would certainly be quite a ground-breaking event

Right at this moment, there is a story of a cop who is under investigation in the strange death of one wife and the disappearance of another. The cop in the story has a family, yet the media huddles outside his home relentlessly.

I could go back and list thousands of stories where the media wasted no time in delivering the names and occupations of individuals that were later cleared of any wrong-doing. I've never heard of another instance where the media apologized for naming names.

Don Henley's 'Dirty Laundry' certainly applies well to conduct of most major news outlets.

Lori Drew is a primary subject of the story, she is not a rape victim, and is not a minor. Identifying her breaks no new ground, nor does it deviate from what news outlets do on a daily basis.

I also remind readers that her name and her role in the Megan Meier tragedy were documented as public record. A public record that Lori filed on her own accord. This is a critically important fact in this debate.

News outlets, bloggers and the general public were handed Lori's name and Lori's own self admissions when she herself filed that police report and sought to elevate the entire situation into the public domain.

Had Lori Drew simply acknowledged what she did was wrong, and apologized - the police report that identified her may have never been filed, and the entire situation may have well been kept at the lowest profile.

To answer your question, Bryan, far from it. The mindset that journalists hold that coveted power is still deeply entrenched in the profession. The Internet is still pretty much treated as an extension of the outlet's "core" medium, not truly as a separate medium that can do radically different things than the old medium.

There is a resentment and fear news producers have toward the Internet -- bloggers are treated with disdain -- they are seen as not just lesser rivals -- but as pests feasting and scraping from the mainstream media and destroying those golden gates in the process.

I have come to the conclusion that in general, news producers are less loyal to journalism than they are to the particular medium they work for.